world too small (for the both of us)
by breakingwalls
Summary: Missing scenes from season 8. Ch 2: Leave it to Donna Paulsen to call him an idiot and make it sound like a come-hither.
1. Chapter 1: 8x03

It's barely eight when Harvey crosses the office, predatory walk making associates scuttle out of his way. The only downside of having his old office back is that he doesn't get to work besides her anymore – her schedule is a mystery to him these days. It's the strangest thing after having her so close for so many years.

She's bent down over some files when he stalks inside, makes to open his mouth – and stops.

Her dress today is red.

Not sober burgundy, or playful cherry. Bright red.

He's known her long enough to know what it means.

"Harvey, did you need something?" Donna asks, not looking up from from her paperwork.

He has to take a moment to remember what is it that he came to do in the first place. "Is it done?"

Donna puts her pen down, looks up at him with a small smile on her face, "You know it is, Harvey."

"Good," Harvey smirks back, "Do I want to know what he's getting, or should I have had my coffee first?"

"You can still have you coffee," she clicks away on that god-awful 4-color ballpoint pen of hers, the one that reminds him of being nine and excited to finally getting to do his schoolwork with a pen like a big boy, "He should be sending down the papers any time now. You'll know then."

Harvey's nostrils flare. Bright red.

"Is he going to be hand-delivering them?"

"I don't know," she leans back in her chair, careful eyes assessing him, "Why?"

Harvey shrugs, " _Carte blanche_ doesn't mean I want to be blindsided."

He'd call her out on her wardrobe choices, if it didn't also mean he'd be exposing just how much he pays attention. Just how much he notices.

"Harvey. You said you wanted me to handle it, _I'm handling it_."

Harvey nods, turns around to leave without another word.

David Fox is a first class jerk, but an attractive one, Harvey's man enough to admit that. He's sure Donna knows better after the whole Stephen Huntley fiasco, but he knows it all too well, the pull of a charming asshole. He's used it to warm up his bed far more often than he'd care to admit.

It takes him the whole walk back to his office to notice his fists are clenched.


	2. Chapter 2: 8x05

It doesn't occur to him that he'd been seeking her comfort until he finds himself thanking her after a forty-second, almost inane phone call.

HIs phone blinks at him and then blacks out, as Harvey reflects on how easy it was to pick it up and call her, how second-nature. This is not her job anymore, or at least it shouldn't be. At least when she was his secretary there was plausible deniability– she oversaw his work life and some of his personal life bled out into it, too, it was only natural. But now? He's got no excuses ready as to why his whole body was _itching_ before he talked to her, and now it's not.

Jesus, he's only been gone two days.

He sighs, flips the phone in his palm, over and over. It's hard not to think about what she said to him by the elevators the other day. He knows what she meant – if _he_ can't figure his shit out, the only one that's going to get hurt is him. He fucking knows it. Donna is just– out of this fucking world, and he likes to think he was once her first choice, that she'd have cherry-picked him out of a line up of the best bachelors, but maybe that's not the case anymore.

He's too fucking scared to know where _he_ stands, is the thing.

She says shit like _I didn't feel anything when I kissed you_ and then when he goes out on a limb and mentions their past, when he mentions strawberries and whipped cream, she reacts like _that_. She reacts exactly like he would've fucking imagined it in one of his wank fantasies, pupils dilated and her whole body rotating to his, leaning into him.

Sexual innuendo has always been part of their banter, but never alluding to something that has to do with them _._ She's teased him about Scotty countless times like she doesn't have firsthand experience, like if they ignored it hard enough, then they'd forget it.

Harvey doesn't want to fucking forget it. He wants to do it again, with strawberries and whipped cream and fuck it, he's sure they can incorporate the can opener into it, too.

Harvey licks his lips, wills himself not to think about it for the sake of his impending flight, but fuck it if it isn't hard. Literally. It's been on the back of his mind all day, coming to haunt him during idle cab rides or coffee shop lines. Leave it to Donna Paulsen to call him an idiot and make it sound like a _come-hither_.

The phone call wasn't about that, though. They'd still bantered because it's what they _do_ , but more than that, it was about Donna being his safe haven. He's known it for some time, how emotionally dependent he is on her, even if the panic attacks were what really clued him in. It used to make him want to tear his chest out, to go looking for replacements in all of the wrong places because having one such woman with the power to completely destroy him was terrifying. Yet, keeping her away was never an option. Closer than arms length might've scared him once but letting her leave was –and remains– out of the fucking question.

Their lives are irrevocably entwined, an intricate cat's cradle that only grows tighter, thirteen years of it wrapping around and cutting into their hearts in a way that feels permanent and inevitable.


End file.
